Thursday, May 10, 2012

One of the brightest off seasons in a long for the Tampa Bucs quickly turned dark Thursday when the club annoucned that second year defensive end Da'Quan Bowers tore the Achilles tendon in his right leg.

Though he tweeted that he will play in 2012, the second year product out of Clemson is expected to be lost for the entire season and surgery has been scheduled for Friday. He suffered the injury will participating in the Bucs' off season conditioniong program.

Its the second major injury for Bowers, who slid into the second round of the NFL draft last year because teams were leery of a torn ACL he suffered in his left leg. Bucs GM Mark Dominik decided to take a chance and gambled on Bowers with the 51st overall pick, while most other teams felt he was not worthy of the second round because of his ACL injury.

Bowers head 25 tackles and 1.5 sacks last season. Fortunately for the Bucs, they signed defensive end Michael Bennett to a one year deal before the start of free agency. Bennett played in 14 games last season, starting in 10.

With major injuries on both legs, Bowers future has to be considered questionable and it is unlikely he will play next season, though he insists otherswise.